Helping Hand
by AniZH
Summary: Jade helps Trina with one of her writing assignments in her very own way.


Hello, everyone!  
Yeah, as you probably noticed, I'm not writing too much at the moment, sadly (for me, don't know about you :P).  
I got this idea from Ivader Johnny. Thank you so much for it! I hope it's somewhat what you imagined. I think one could make more out of this idea but... this is the result as of now.  
Have fun reading!

* * *

Trina and Jade somehow learn to get along over time. It's not like they are friends or anything. At least not in the opinion of Tori's group of friends. Heck, Andre and Beck also don't feel like they are friends with Trina at all and Trina wouldn't call any of them her friends. But it happens that the group or even just a few of them hang out together with Trina, even more than when Trina still went to Hollywood Arts.

By now she's in college but tries to spend more quality time with Tori, so it happens that she's with Tori, Cat and Jade on girls' night and she and Jade get along well enough. It's fascinating for Tori to watch.

At the moment, Tori's the one unnerved by Trina. Jade actually came to visit her. Not exactly to spend quality time. They're working together on a history project. But Jade readily offered to come visit to do it together instead of saying they can do it over video chat or devide it into parts at school and work at it by themselves.

But while they're putting together their poster, Trina comes down the stairs into the living room where Tori decided to work with Jade as both their parents are out.

"Tori," she says in a whiny voice that doesn't fit a college student. "You said you were gonna help me."

Trina had to hand in her first assignment with her writing professor and he did not like it at all but instead of giving her a bad grade out of the gate, he gave her a chance to do the assignment all over again. Trina, desperate, asked Tori to help her with it, which Tori agreed to because she loves her sister and she wants her to do well. That's what Tori used the time for that she had between school and Jade coming over and though it was only one hour she already is on the verge of snapping.

Trina can just be so difficult to work with. She whines and complains and likes to tell Tori that she also can't do better than her, only to beg her the next second to help her.

Tori knows that Trina's just nervous and scared. It's hard to be critized and Tori can't imagine what it feels like for your first assignment in one of your college classes to turn out that bad. Trina lashes out because she doesn't want to break down. Tori gets it but it's still hard to handle.

"Don't you see that I have stuff to do too?" Tori asks, trying to stay calm, gesturing to the papers spread over the coffee table.

She told Trina before Jade came over that she'll come back to her room as soon as Jade was gone again.

"I don't care," Trina says though. "I need your help!"

Tori takes a deep breath. This behaviour is so very typical for Trina. She wants Tori to help her, even if Tori doesn't get done with her own work. Tori should be used to it. She is used to it. That doesn't mean she doesn't hate it at times, like right now.

"What's going on?" Jade checks mildly interested.

Tori starts to explain it to her: "Trina's professor said her first script is terrible..."

"Tori! Shut up," she gets interrupted by Trina, then turning to Jade: "He didn't like it. So? He gave me a chance to do it all over again to not get a bad grade. And Tori promised to help me. Though I'm not sure she can do any better."

She grimly glances to Tori who closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. Trina will never ever admit that anyone does anything better than her – even when she's asking for help because she in fact isn't as good as she thinks she is. No, Tori doesn't think that Trina is extremely bad. She was shocked when Trina told her about her professor – she was also shocked when she then read her script and it actually was really bad.

Trina isn't a singer and never was, but she otherwise is a creative person. She never was as good as most other students at Hollywood Arts but... she was capable.

Tori still believes she herself is better at writing and her grades at Hollywood Arts agree with that. As does Trina in asking her for help, only to then turn around and claim the opposite. That makes Tori want to help her!

Jade snorts and it seems to Tori that Jade notices her misery and it amuses her. "Well, good luck."

And wait. Jade's here. Jade could help Trina.

The thing is that Tori also wants Trina to succeed. She's her sister after all, as much as she's unnerved by her right now.

But yes, she is unnerved and she honestly doesn't exactly know how to help her. She worked with her already for that hour but Trina doesn't take her advice and... Tori may know how to write a decent script herself but she doesn't know how to teach someone else, especially with the exact assignment the professor has given.

Jade has helped Tori before though – because she does help her friends and somehow Tori found herself her friend at some point – and she's even good at it. Not to mention that she and Beck are the best at writing in the group of people Tori's close to and whom she could ask for help for Trina. Well, and she can never ask Beck to help Trina because Jade would kill her then.

"Jade, can't you help her?"

"No," Jade answers without hesitation, maybe even before she really realizes what she got asked.

"Please. Pretty please," Tori makes and makes her best puppy dog eyes which always works on her father.

And since they are friends... Tori noticed that Jade can really be soft with things like this. When someone looks at her in this way. If one of the people she likes looks at her in this way. She's always soft with Cat then and with her little brother. And also with Tori.

"Ugh," she makes after a moment, before she turns to Trina and asks with a much rougher voice, as if to cover her softness after that look: "Do you want my help?"

Tori can't believe her luck.

Trina bites her lip though and turns back to Tori. "Why don't you help me?"

"Because you're going on my nerves," Tori answers directly which makes Jade smirk.

Trina glares at Tori, before she tells Jade: "Yes, come help me!"

Jade has this talent to sound calm and yet threatening somehow, very deciding, never allowing anyone to argue, not even Trina. "I'll finish this up and then I'm coming to your room."

Trina presses her lips together and only for a moment it looks as if she wants to argue, then she just stomps off.

.

.

When Jade and Tori are done, Jade goes to Trina's room. Trina first explains the exact assignment, how many words they are supposed to write, the rough parts they should have in the script, that it should be an inspiring story with one main character and only five other speaking roles.

"Let's see what you got," Jade says when she thinks she knows all there is to know.

Trina switches from her browser to a document on her laptop and hands it to Jade. "This is it."

Jade doesn't need to look at it for too long. Her first instinct always is to check at the bottom how many words are in a document, just to have a feeling how long it will take to read it.

She immediately notices something and it darkens her mood. "Is this a joke? You don't even have the required words yet?"

"I did until Tori steamrolled all over it and erased most of it!" Trina defends herself and hands Jade the print-out version that she gave her professor and that he rejected.

Jade takes it but doesn't look at it. "Ugh. Then write somethiing better that at least fulfills the requirements."

"You're supposed to help me," Trina says and Jade mimicks her in a whiny voice: "'You are supposed to help me.' I won't write the whole thing for you, you know."

Trina opens her mouth and closes it again, as if lost for words. Maybe she wants to tell Jade that she's stupid for it, but she does need and want her help and knows she has to play somewhat nice because Jade won't stand nearly as much as Tori from Trina – as Jade also isn't her sister.

"But you can read what I already got to tell me what I can do better," she finally says.

Jade glares at her for a moment. "Fine, but keep writing while I do."

Trina takes her latop back and loads the script as it is now to her tablet that she gives Jade to read and then, they both work in silence for a while.

Jade soon pulls the print out version to her to see what Tori erased and if some of the inconsistencies and plotholes or plain boringness are because of that. But not all of it is.

And finally she has to say: "Okay, stop."

Trina can't actually finish this thing. Every word she will write will possibly only make it worse. Jade knows how it can be. You start badly but don't notice it yourself and then you're stuck in the middle or even at the end and rewrite that scene a thousand times but your story is still bad. You can't really save it anymore at that point. You have to go back to the beginning because you took the wrong turn way too early.

"What?" Trina asks. She finally did start typing again only a few minutes ago.

"I didn't know you didn't even have a plot or anything," Jade asnwers.

Trina looks offended at that. "I do."

"What is it then?" Jade wants to know.

Well, and she kind of gathered the plot Trina wanted to have and that she now explains. It's about a woman searching for a boyfriend unsuccessfully and instead getting a great job opportunity that she takes up. She concentrates on herself, gets successful in her career and then finds a boyfriend in the process without searching.

It's honestly a stupid trope in Jade's opinion, but at the same time she knows that stories like that work.

As it's a typical story, she of course already guessed that that was where this story was going, but honestly: "At the moment it's just some boring day to day story about a boring character."

Trina is definitely offended now and totally lost for words.

Well, and Jade doesn't want to discourage her from writing at all. She wants to discourage her to sing any time of the day but firstable Trina isn't that bad of a writer, normally – Jade read and watched some of her stuff before and Trina actually has a great knack for comedy, not only unwillingly but especially when she wants to write comedically – and second of all her writing doesn't hurt anyone as you can always stop reading while you can't stop listening when she's singing right next to you.

But Jade also knows that Trina works best if she's provoked. She has this fighting and protesting attitude. If someone tells her, she can't do a thing in a certain way she will want to prove that she can do it after all.

Jade finds it so easy to predict the people around her. She knows how to push their buttons. It's especially easy for her with Trina because she might be like that herself a little bit as well.

But she finds it easy in general and actually, when she decides to help someone, she really does it. What's the point otherwise?

She once helped Robbie with a writing assignment too and Robbie is very harsh with himself (often through Rex), so Jade might have used her usual harsh voice to not put him down but build him up instead. She knows how to be nice to someone while still pretending not to be. She was able to roast Rex a whole lot and the teachers while telling Robbie quite gently what was wrong with his work and how to do better.

With Trina she doesn't even need to find nice words or messages. She just has to make clear to Trina what exactly is wrong and how she can prove that she can do this assignment better. With Jade's first statement she might just feel discouraged.

That's why Jade adds after a moment: "Build up you character! Why should we care for what she wants to do?"

"Because..." Trina starts and looks at her laptop for a moment as if she's searching for a reason in her own writing. But she also can't find any that spontanously.

"Great reason!" Jade mocks. "Now I'm suddenly so with her."

Trina glares at her and aggressivly asks, deciding not to talk about that point anymore: "So? Is that the only problem?"

It's easy to provoke Trina more: "I'm not sure _you_ can actually do anything else any better. But..." And she explains to a glaring Trina a bit about her writing style, what else she could change in certain scenes, just a few little things that should get Trina back in order to her usual writing which – as noticed – is better than whatever she did here. She obviously only concentrates on the beginning, on those things she already read. She knows that's enough as Trina will easily be able to continue writing, will get into the flow, as soon as she starts out right.

She doesn't sugarcoat it though and Trina probably doesn't even notice that the things Jade says could help her. She's listening but as soon as Jade's done, she grumpily says: "Fine, I'll try doing it. Now leave me alone."

Jade smirks because she might enjoy putting other people in a bad mood, no matter what her plans otherwise are with helping someone or whatever.

She puts script and tablet next to her and stands up. Before she leaves, she still says: "You better get to it right now."

"I will," Trina spits out.

.

.

Trina'll prove to Jade that she can do better. What a terrible, insulting girl Jade is! She'll show her. She'll show her how well she can actually write.

It takes hours of work and her script is a totally different one when she's done. She implemented everything Jade told her to and then also changed a lot of other things and she's extremely satisfied with her own script (unlike the first one which she handed in with a stomach ache because she knew herself that something was off).

Only when she sent it to her, she realizes what Jade actually did. It makes her stop for a moment, as she realizes that Jade actually helped her. And it wasn't on accident, was it? Jade wasn't just mean. She knew what it would do with Trina,

Jade's quick to text her back with a few more notes, telling her that she might already get an A for this script and that she should stop sucking so bad and being overly nervous, just because she's in college now.

Jade and Trina are similiar in some regards. For example they are similiar in both rarely ever thanking someone. But when they thank someone, they really mean it. They're really and deeply thankful.

So, Trina knows that she doesn't need more words. Jade will understand how deeply Trina feels it, when she texts her: "Thank you, Jade."


End file.
